306 



CAVERNS WITH HUMAN BONES. 



Add to this, fi'om the known habits of several races of the ancient 

 Celts to live in caverns, of which many are preserved in the pro- 

 vinces bordering the Loire and the Rhone, it may be readily be- 

 lieved that the liuman bones with pottery, in the caverns of part of 

 ancient Aqnitaine and the Narbonnaise, belonged to some of the 

 wretched Gauls, whom Ceesar caused to perish in these caverns. 



Where, says M. Desnoyers, the mixture of human bones and those 

 of quadrupeds is more complete, currents of water might have ef- 

 fected a moven3ent and intermixture [remaniement) of a more recent 

 date. The hatchets of flint and other rude instruments found in these 

 caves, are such as are found also in the tumuli of the ancient CeltSj 

 and were in use in the time of Caesar. 



M. Desnoyers thinks the most ancient of these bones are Gaulic 

 or Celtic : others belong to a more recent epoch. He examined the 

 rich collection of Celtic coins in the Bibliotheque Royale ; on many 

 of them he observed figures of animals, such as the boar, the horse, 

 the wild ox, and the stag ; and more rarely symbolic or monstrous 

 animals, but no figures of the rhinoceros and other extinct races, 

 which, had they been co-existent with man, there might have been 

 reason to expect. 



M. Tournal, who first discovered human bones in the cavern at 

 Bize, maintains a contrary opinion, and he applies the same conclu- 

 sions to the bones of mammiferoiis animals in other caverns. The 

 caverns of Bize (Aude) contain bones of the stag, the camel, the 

 roebuck, the antelope, and bear ; those of Sommieres (Gard) con- 

 tain bones of the rhinoceros, the ox, the horse, the stag, and the 

 hyena. M. Tournal concludes from the state of the bones, that they 

 are antediluvian, and that before the last general catastrophe (cata- 

 clysme) southern Gaul was inhabited by man, together with a great 

 number of species of mammiferous animals now extinct. 



The cavern of Rancogne, situated three leagues from Angoulerae, 

 is one of the largest in France, and has long been celebrated for its 

 quantity of stalactites ; but under the stalagmite and alluvial soil on 

 the floor of the cavern, a great quantity of human and quadrupedal 

 bones have been found, mixed with fragments of pottery and with 

 pebbles from the adjoining rocks. A brook still traverses this grotto. 

 The river Tardonere, which runs at a little distance, loses a part of 

 its waters in other gulfs in the country; it often overflows, and has. 

 penetrated into the cavern of Rancogne. The traditions of the coun- 

 try preserve the remembrance of the cavern having served the inhab- 

 itants as a place of refuge at different periods, and that wolves, which 

 abound in the forest of Braconne, commonly retire into it and carry 

 with them their prey, and human bodies, which they exhume from 

 the neighbouring cemetery. 



This mode of filling the cavern (observes M. Desnoyers) differs 

 much indeed from the antediluvian theory of M. Tournal. Some 

 grottoes contain human bones in the upper alluvial soil, over a bed of 



